virtualbox crashing the host HDD need help with it.

[goontron]

on my Linux laptop when i start a sun-virtualbox VM my host HDD goes all wonky and starts crashing the heads, but without one running its fine. can you help me?

[Mad_Professor]

Re: virtualbox crashing the host HDD need help with it.

on my Linux laptop when i start a sun-virtualbox VM my host HDD goes all wonky and starts crashing the heads, but without one running its fine. can you help me?

Check the logs, see what it says.

[goontron]

Re: virtualbox crashing the host HDD need help with it.

which log? kernel/vbox/SMART/USB/VM/RAID/disk management?

[Mad_Professor]

Re: virtualbox crashing the host HDD need help with it.

What do you have for distro?
uname -a: ?
What virtualbox version do you have?

Any log that has information related to your problem.

We do have a code function on this forum.
[CODE] [/CODE]

Also sun was bought out by oracle.

[Time2Retire]

Re: virtualbox crashing the host HDD need help with it.

In whatever directory you have the VM image saved, you will also find a folder named "Logs". That may be what you are looking for.

Also, if you start virtualbox from a terminal window, you can invoke options such as "debug". Here is a list of those options:

$ virtualbox --help
Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager 4.1.14
(C) 2005-2012 Oracle Corporation
All rights reserved.

Usage:
 --startvm <vmname|UUID>  start a VM by specifying its UUID or name
 --seamless         switch to seamless mode during startup
 --fullscreen        switch to fullscreen mode during startup
 --rmode sdl|image     select different render mode (default is sdl)
 --no-startvm-errormsgbox  do not show a message box for VM start errors
 --dbg           enable the GUI debug menu
 --debug          like --dbg and show debug windows at VM startup
 --debug-command-line    like --dbg and show command line window at VM startup
 --debug-statistics     like --dbg and show statistics window at VM startup
 --no-debug         disable the GUI debug menu and debug windows
 --start-paused       start the VM in the paused state
 --start-running      start the VM running (for overriding --debug*)

Expert options:
 --disable-patm       disable code patching (ignored by AMD-V/VT-x)
 --disable-csam       disable code scanning (ignored by AMD-V/VT-x)
 --recompile-supervisor   recompiled execution of supervisor code (*)
 --recompile-user      recompiled execution of user code (*)
 --recompile-all      recompiled execution of all code, with disabled
               code patching and scanning
 (*) For AMD-V/VT-x setups the effect is --recompile-all.

The following environment variables are evaluated:
 VBOX_GUI_DBG_ENABLED    enable the GUI debug menu if set
 VBOX_GUI_DBG_AUTO_SHOW   show debug windows at VM startup
 VBOX_GUI_NO_DEBUGGER    disable the GUI debug menu and debug windows

[goontron]

Re: virtualbox crashing the host HDD need help with it.

here is the logs. i think i found somthing on vbox.log.3 in the cpu-dbg. but it cold be it using the host I/O cach so im stumped!

[Mad_Professor]

Re: virtualbox crashing the host HDD need help with it.

here is the logs. i think i found somthing on vbox.log.3 in the cpu-dbg. but it cold be it using the host I/O cach so im stumped!

I'm not seeing much, the only thing that peak my interest was this:

00:00:02.782120 DrvBlock: Flushes will be ignored
00:00:02.782187 DrvBlock: Async flushes will be passed to the disk
00:00:02.782250 DrvBlock: Flushes will be ignored
00:00:02.782278 DrvBlock: Async flushes will be passed to the disk
00:00:02.783352 DrvBlock: Flushes will be ignored
00:00:02.783407 DrvBlock: Async flushes will be passed to the disk

Basically write-back mode caching, so you shouldn't be having "HDD goes all wonky."

The other thing is, PAE is enabled and you only allocated 768MB of ram to your windows VM. It's not a bad thing, you could disable it to run a 32bit VM and see if that has any effect.
Also why 768MB of ram?

Virtual-box is not throwing errors, so we need to go to the other logs and see why your HDD is going nuts? check messages or syslog in "/var/log/".